It's a month before school opens, and many feel as bewildered as they did in March before school buildings shut down.
There's more information now about the new coronavirus, but some of the same questions.
The big question in March: What would it take to close a school?
Today, you can add: How do you detect an asymptomatic case? Also, who is going to test students and teachers? And where are they going to do it?
All good questions, according to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. And schools now know the answer won't come from New York State.
"I can’t fashion a plan that will work in every school district because they are just too different," Cuomo said Friday when he announced that schools in the state may reopen.
The governor told school districts they must post their plans for testing and contact tracing online. Most districts' plans say they would coordinate with the local health department. But the idea that districts have to know how and whom to test while they are trying to figure out how to educate children during the pandemic did not sit well with some.
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“I will do everything that I’m supposed to do as a trained professional educator. All of it. I embrace those challenges. I accept those challenges and we’re going to offer three good options to our parents," said Buffalo Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash about plans to offer in person, remote or hybrid schooling. "But I reject having to be responsible for testing and for contact tracing."
Cash and other superintendents plan to meet with Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale R. Burstein this week to get some answers.
Burstein said last week that if a student or staff member has symptoms, the health department would tell the school the places that offer testing. A health department spokeswoman said in an email that the county's capacity for tests through its public health lab is limited, and turnaround times through other labs can be long.
"There’s a finite number of tests available. There’s a finite number of people who can collect the specimens so we all have to work together to figure out how to make that work," Burstein said. "We don't have the capacity to do all that testing."
Frontier Superintendent Richard Hughes said testing results have to be known quickly so those in close contact can be notified.
"Until that’s at a capacity where we can do that constantly and know in real time who has the virus and who doesn’t have the virus, whether they’re symptomatic or asymptomatic, it's going to blow up like it did in March," he said.
So where does that leave parents of a child who tested positive and the school the student attends?
"If there is an outbreak in a particular school, we would work with that school and partner with the state health department to ensure pop-up testing is done," Burstein said. That's what happened last month after a cluster of positive cases was traced to a Buffalo church. The county set up a pop-up testing site in the church parking lot.
A school may not have to totally shut down if just one person tests positive, provided strict social distancing practices are employed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But those who have been in "close contact" with the person who tested positive – regardless if anyone wore a face covering – would be required to stay home and check for symptoms of the virus. Erie County identifies "close contacts" as those who were within 6 feet of the person for 10 minutes or more during the time the confirmed case was infectious.
Close contacts are notified by the health department of their exposure, advised that they are under quarantine for 14 days past their last date of exposure, and told how to monitor for symptoms and how they can get a diagnostic test.
"We’re going to hear from Dr. Burstein on what her plan is to support what the governor told us what we have to do, because I don’t believe any school should be in the medical testing business. We have enough on our plates to do our job,” Cash said.
-Staff reporter Sandra Tan contributed to this report.
